Two Much Alike

by Pamela Bauer

  Now he just needed to find a way to keep anyone else from trying to prove the contrary.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “THIS IS IT—3411,” the cab driver said as he pulled up to the curb in front of a small brick house surrounded by a chain-link fence. “You said you want me to pick you up in an hour, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s fine.” Joe pulled several bills from his pocket and handed them to the driver.

  One hour. It was enough time for him to say goodbye to Frannie, but he knew that no matter how much time there was, he would never be able to tell her the real reason he was ending their relationship.

  He couldn’t say that lies and love didn’t make a winning combination. Nor that as long as he lived in the shadow of the past, there could be no future for them.

  As he climbed out of the cab, he tried not to think about what might have been between him and Frannie, but instead focused on his father’s situation. He unlatched the gate and started up the walk, stepping around the toy dump truck blocking his route. Next to it was a small red plastic pail filled with sand and a shovel. Joe could imagine Luke transferring sand from the bucket to the dump truck, although it appeared that most of the sand had landed on the sidewalk.

  Luke wasn’t the only one who’d been playing in the yard. Someone had taken colored chalk and drawn pictures on the sidewalk. Since most of the drawings were in pastel colors, he assumed it was Emma.

  Like the house, the yard was small but neat. The grass was cut short, the flower beds edged with stone, the hedge running beside the fence recently trimmed. One half of the yard was shaded by a large oak tree, a rope swing dangling from a thick, gnarled branch. Daisies and marigolds bloomed next to the house.

  Joe climbed the steps to the doormat that said Welcome to Our Home, and was about to lift his hand to knock on the wooden screen door when he saw Frannie. Barefoot and wearing shorts and a knit shirt, she was gathering the Legos scattered across the floor. As if sensing someone watching her, she straightened and turned.

  “You’re here!” It was obvious from her tone of voice that she was very pleased to see him. “I was just thinking about you.”

  He wanted to toss some flirtatious comment at her, but knew he couldn’t. “I flew in this morning. I’m on a job.”

  “How did you get here from the airport?” she asked, glancing outside to the street and seeing no car.

  “I took a cab,” he said, wishing his heart wouldn’t pump so fast at the sight of her. “Is this a bad time?”

  “No, not at all,” she said, opening the door in a welcoming gesture. “I just put Luke down for a nap. I was about to have a glass of iced tea. Would you like one?”

  “Sure.”

  Joe followed her into the living room, where she said, “Sit down. The sofa’s a bit worn, but it’s comfortable.”

  What caught Joe’s eye as he entered the room wasn’t the furniture, but the framed print on the wall. It was Escher’s Three Worlds, a lithograph of a woodland pond.

  “You like Escher,” he remarked, feeling as if he and Frannie shared more than a physical attraction for one another.

  “I saw the one in your room,” she said, her eyes telling him that she, too, felt that connection.

  Joe pulled his eyes away from hers, needing to distance himself emotionally. He’d come here to break up with her, not bond with her. He glanced at the photographs on the opposite wall and said, “Are these yours?”

  “Some are.”

  “Like this one?” He indicated a picture of her three children running through a meadow, their arms reaching skyward in total abandonment.

  “Yes, that one’s mine. Some are from my mother’s collection.” She pointed to an oval frame with a photo of a very sober-looking couple. “Those are my great-grandparents.”

  Joe listened as she rattled off the names of several of her ancestors. Then he said, “You’re not in any of the pictures.”

  “Yes, I am. Right there.” She pointed to a photograph of a man, a woman, two girls and a boy standing in front of a lake. Each of the kids held a stringer of fish. “I was nine and had just been fishing with my sister and my cousin.”

  “That’s your mom and dad?”

  “No, my aunt and uncle. We were at a resort in Wisconsin. It was my first time in a boat.”

  “So where are your parents?” he asked, his eyes roving over the photographs.

  “This is my mother and my stepfather,” she said, pointing to a picture of a fair-haired woman and a lumberjack of a man sitting on a wooden glider. “That’s my sister Lois,” she added, putting a finger on a blond woman hugging Emma in front of a waterfall. “I shot that at Minnehaha Falls.”

  “Your sister looks like you,” he noted.

  “I look like her,” she corrected him with an impish grin. “She’s older. The guy playing in the snow with the kids there—that’s my cousin Jeffrey. He lives in Denver. I shot that when he was here last winter.”

  He studied it closely. “Yeah, I can see the family resemblance.”

  “Look at this one. It’s one of my favorites.” She pointed to a small snapshot of two little girls sharing a tire swing.

  “You and your sister?”

  She nodded. “We used to love to swing on that big old tire in the backyard,” she mused aloud. “Life was so simple back then.”

  “Were they happy times?”

  “Yes…at least, they were until my mom and dad divorced,” she answered.

  “You don’t have your father’s picture up here?” She shook her head. “I haven’t seen him since I was seven.”

  Joe’s eyes were drawn to a photo of a woman with big red hair and lots of jewelry. She sat playing cards with Emma and Alex. “Who’s this?”

  “That’s Arlene Harper.”

  “Dennis’s mother.”

  “Uh-huh. She was teaching them how to play poker the day I took that one. They used lima beans for money.”

  Joe hadn’t noticed the tiny piles of beans in front of the twins, because his attention had been drawn to the woman’s face. It didn’t look at all familiar. If she were his birth mother, wouldn’t he feel something when he looked at her picture? He looked at the brown eyes, the pert nose and the rounded chin. Absently his fingers rubbed his own jaw.

  Noticing Frannie’s eyes on him, he swept his gaze over the photographs and asked, “So these are all family photos?”

  She nodded. “It seems appropriate since this is our family room. I try to keep the kids’ pictures recent. Alex is getting to an age where he’s becoming a bit sensitive about having baby pictures on display.”

  “Where is Alex?”

  “He and Emma went to the movies with my sister.”

  “So we’re alone?”

  “Except for Luke,” she reminded him.

  She looked so alluring in her little top and shorts, he had to fight the temptation to pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless. He shoved his hands into his pockets and tried to focus on the reason he’d come.

  “I’m glad we’re alone because we need to talk,” he said.

  “All right. Just let me get the tea,” she said, then disappeared into the kitchen.

  While she was gone, he looked around the room she’d called their family room. Against one wall was a bookcase crammed with books—children’s on the lower shelves and adult’s on the upper ones. In the corner was a small cabinet that housed a portable TV. Floor pillows were stacked next to the sofa and a box of toys rested beneath the coffee table. Next to the side chair was a child-size rocker, a tattered blanket draped over its seat.

  “Do you take lemon and sugar?” Frannie asked as she returned carrying a tray with a pitcher of iced tea and two tall glasses.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Me, neither.” She gave him a beguiling smile, then sat down on the sofa, setting the tray on the coffee table in front of her. As she poured the tea into the glasses she said, “I’m really glad you’re here, Joe. How long can you stay?”

&nb
sp; He sat down on the chair across from her. “Not long. I only came by because there’s something I have to tell you.”

  The sparkle in her eye disappeared. “By the look on your face I can see it’s not something pleasant.” She handed him a glass.

  “Everything that’s happened…the paternity testing…” He was unsure exactly how to say what he knew he had to say.

  She didn’t help him out. she just sat waiting for him to continue.

  “I guess there’s no easy way to do this, Frannie, except to say that it would be better if we just let this whole thing drop.”

  Apprehension narrowed her eyes. “By this whole thing, you mean the DNA testing?”

  “I’ve decided there’s no point in having the test done a second time.” He was glad to have the iced tea, for suddenly his throat was dry. He took a long swallow.

  “But I’ve already made the arrangements for someone to come here and draw the sample from Alex.”

  “Can’t you cancel it?”

  “But why? Do you think the first results were accurate?”

  He took another drink of the tea, then set his glass down on the coffee table. “It doesn’t matter whether they were or not.”

  “Of course it matters,” she countered.

  “No, Frannie, it doesn’t to me. Whether or not the lab made a mistake isn’t going to change the fact that I’m not Alex’s father. If you recall, that is the reason we did the test in the first place.”

  “Well, yes, but the results have significance beyond paternity, Joe.”

  “Not for me they don’t.” As soon as he’d uttered the words he realized how harsh they must have sounded to her.

  She stiffened. “What are you trying to tell me? That you don’t want to know if you might have more family?”

  She made it sound as if he was a first-class jerk if he didn’t. He raked a hand over the back of his neck. “It’s not that simple, Frannie. I’m worried that whatever the results are, I’m not prepared to deal with them at this point in my life. You’ve met my father. You know how he reacts to the tiniest of changes. It’s a can of worms best left unopened.”

  “So you’re backing away from this because of your concern for your father?” She stared at him, her eyes probing into his as if she were peering into his soul.

  He looked away, afraid she would see more than he wanted to reveal. He reached for the half-empty glass, focusing on its contents. “You’ve seen how fragile my father’s mental health is. If he were to suspect that I was searching for information that would prove I’m not his son…” He shook his head. “I don’t want to even imagine what it could do to him.”

  “He doesn’t need to know, Joe. Records can be searched, investigations can be made and results can be determined without involving him.”

  “But I would know and I wouldn’t want to try to keep that from him.” He looked at her. “Can’t you see? It’s easier not knowing.”

  “Are you sure it’ll be easier, Joe?”

  He wasn’t, but he couldn’t tell her that. He needed to convince her that leaving the past alone was the only way he would have peace of mind when it came to his father.

  “Frannie, for thirty-three years he’s been my dad. Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter what any DNA test shows. I have my father. How much longer I’ll have him, I’m not sure, which is why I need to do whatever I can to make sure nothing hurts him.”

  She leaned forward, her arms resting on her knees. “Joe, I can imagine how unsettling this must be for you. I’m sure it’s left you with a lot of questions. Maybe you think it’s better not to learn the answers to those questions, but are you going to be able to forget that there’s a possibility you could have more family?”

  “Believe me, Frannie, I won’t forget. It’s just that now is not the time for me to be searching for those answers.”

  “Will there be a right time?”

  “I believe there will, but right now my father’s health has to come first.”

  She nodded, although he could see she had her doubts.

  “So what are you going to do, Joe? Pretend that the DNA test never happened?”

  “No, only that it gave us inconclusive results.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “It’s what I have to believe.” With his eyes, he pleaded for understanding. “For my dad’s sake.”

  “And what about Alex? What do I tell him? He thinks the first test didn’t work.”

  “Then you tell him we decided it wasn’t necessary to redo the test because you saw that I don’t have a scar that his father has.”

  He could see she wasn’t happy with his answer. “You could be his uncle.”

  “I can’t be his uncle now, Frannie.” He lowered his voice in resignation.

  “What do you want to be to him, Joe?”

  He knew what he needed to say to answer that question, yet her expression made him wish those necessary words wouldn’t destroy her hopes for the future. But he was sure they would. “I think it would be better if I wasn’t in his life.”

  The look on her face made him feel as if he should be competing for the World’s Biggest Dirtbag title.

  She jumped to her feet and stood before him. “Good grief! When you said you wanted to drop everything, you weren’t just talking about the testing, were you,” she asked rhetorically. “You were talking about us, too.”

  This was the moment he’d been waiting for. “I’m sorry, Frannie. If circumstances were different I—”

  “If they were different, what?” she interrupted in anger. “You wouldn’t be saying goodbye to me? You are saying goodbye, aren’t you.” She stood, her eyes flashing with accusation.

  He stood so that she wasn’t towering over him. “I don’t want to, but we need to be realistic. It’s not going to work out between us.”

  She bit down on her lower lip before saying, “I think it could.”

  Joe shook his head. He wanted to find a way to remain a part of her life, but the truth was if he continued to see her, he put his father’s life in jeopardy. He’d created a wall of lies that prevented him from searching for answers that were hidden in the past. As his father had reminded him, they had to accept the sacrifices that came with such actions.

  “I wish I could agree with you, Frannie, but I can’t,” he said in somber resignation.

  “So what does that mean? That once you leave here I won’t see you again?” When he didn’t look at her, she tugged on his shirtsleeves. “Tell me, Joe. Are you going to walk out that door and never come back?”

  “I’m sorry.” The words sounded inadequate even to his own ears.

  She let go of him, wrapping her arms around her midsection as if warding off a chill. When she spoke he could hear how close to tears she was.

  “Don’t apologize, Joe. It’s not like you made me any promises. You made it clear from the start that you didn’t give our relationship much of a chance.”

  “Only because of my father’s situation, not because of my feelings for you.”

  “So you have feelings for me?”

  There was such doubt in those beautiful eyes that it took every bit of his willpower not to show her just how much she meant to him.

  “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care about you,” he said, his voice softening. “I could have called and said all of this over the phone.”

  His words were of little comfort to her. “Gee, thanks. I feel honored to have gotten the ‘in person’ dumping rather than the ‘over the phone’ one,” she said with heavy sarcasm. She faced him with her hands on her hips, her eyes dark with emotion. “You just go ahead and leave, because you know what? My kids deserve better than you. They deserve a man who doesn’t run away at the first sign of trouble, a man who wants to be a part of their lives, a man who stays.” The last part came out on a sob. She tried to stifle the tears but they trickled down her cheek. She turned so he wouldn’t see them, but it was too late.

  He grabbed her by the arm and sw
ung her around to face him. “Frannie, I wish I could be that man. I want to be that man, but I feel trapped. If I choose you, I may lose my father. If I choose my father, I lose you.”

  “I don’t want to lose you, Joe,” she cried.

  He stared into those beautiful eyes brimming with tears, and his heart ached. She was the ray of hope in the dark storm that had been his life for the past two years. How could he give up the one thing that had given him promise for the future?

  The answer was, he couldn’t. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, a long passionate kiss that told her more than any words could ever say. Her lips parted under the deepening urgency of his mouth as desire flared between them.

  He wanted her, more than he’d ever imagined it possible to want a woman, and from the way her body softened into his, he knew that she wanted him, too. He moved his hands up her arms until they reached her shoulders, pushing the fabric away until her creamy smooth flesh was exposed to his touch.

  She moaned in surrender as he eased her down onto the sofa, his body on top of hers. Her hands found their way inside his shirt, slowly moving toward his waist. Joe trembled as they touched each other with an intimacy they’d never shared before. He stopped thinking about right and wrong, shoulds and should nots, reacting to sensations that pulsed through his body as she pressed against him. He needed her as much as he needed air to breathe, and the magic he felt in her arms convinced him he could find an answer to any problems they faced.

  She was the woman he loved, and he couldn’t let her go. Not now, not ever. Desire had them in its grasp, and it was only the sound of a woman’s voice that stopped them from finishing what they’d started.

  “Frannie, are you there?”

  Suddenly hands that had been pulling Joe closer pushed him away, eyes that had only seconds ago been darkened with passion widened in panic. Frannie looked past him toward the door and gasped.

  “We have to get up,” she whispered to Joe, then wiggled out from underneath him, nearly shoving him off the sofa in the process.